Army of Priests

One of the major new story in Australia right now is the death of one of our soldiers in Afghanistan from a road side bomb. Naturally, and appropriately, the nation is concerned for the welfare of our troops and the two daughters and wife he left behind. But what does concern me is how this incident highlights the inequality of value we place on human life. Afghanis are killed from this war quite often yet we never hear of them except perhaps in the occasional statistic. One of our soldiers dies and it is front page news.

And if a terrorist, an enemy, dies it is a good thing.

A good thing.

No evil, no matter how necessary, is ever a good. It is always an evil. No evil, weather it benefits us or not, is ever a good. The death of a terrorist or a soldier both represent an ultimate, irrevocable failure in the human condition. We should mourn terrorist’ deaths and beg for forgiveness for the unfortunate punishment we have had to lay upon them just as we do for our own.

In Iraq we have definitive statistics for the number of coalition casualties. We have reasonable estimates for the number of Iraqi civilian deaths. But we never hear how many terrorists we are killing. It’s like they don’t count. They’re not human. Surely our armies would have some idea. To fight an enemy without any idea of their numbers or how effective our troops are is incompetent. It’s not like dead bodies move.

It’s that we don’t care. We don’t want to hear how many of them die. They don’t matter to us. Their lives are insignificant.

A person becomes our enemy when we de-humanize them so much we can no longer relate to the person we have produced in our mind. We forget that our enemies have mothers and fathers and sons and daughters. We forget they have favorite foods or colours. We forget they have feelings or dreams or concerns or prayers.

I cannot imagine what a mother feels like after her son has blown himself up on a buss filled with Israelis. Is she looked after or abandoned? Is she surprised or supportive? Where does she turn? Who can understand?

I cannot imagine what pain or ideal, hope or horror could compel a child to destroy them self. Were the brainwashed or did they choose out of free will? Did anyone advise them against it? Was there any other option to achieve what they hoped? How did they view us westerners?

And no, I cannot imagine what it is like to be holding my child after she was hit by shrapnel from a bomb and lays dead.

But can we see both sides of the problem here? A horror has been done to the victims. But a horror has also been done to the perpetrator. When we hate someone the first person we hurt is ourselves.

Christianity is the only world religion whose followers are commanded to “Love your enemies” (Mathew 5:44; Luke 6:27). Now I have no one who I want to kill right now, but there are terrorists who wish to kill me. They have made me their enemy by de-humanizing me. By forgetting I have feelings or family or hopes. They can only imagine a caricature of evil in place of a real person.

What would happen to that image if we met? What would happen if in some way I was able to show them love? Could they still hold me as an enemy?

I have searched to see if there was any Christian originations working in terrorist breeding grounds or with families of the bombers. I found none. I think this is disappointing because bombs wont win this “war on terror”. Aggression only serves to continue the ugly cycle that creates a terrorist in the first place. Only Jesus’ way – the love your enemies way – can undo this cycle. Only love of enemies can redeem the broken relationship. After all what is peace if not the absence of enemies?

For now lets pray that God reaches these people. That he comforts family members and that He gives a way out for potential bombers. And that the victims of attacks will not be even more damaged by the rage in their hearts.

Missiology is very much where theo.ogy meets our methodology. We believe in these doctrines, now how does our belief in them influence the way we act. Where does God’s mission meet the Church’s mission and our personal mission? It is both a subset of ecclesiology and a branch of theology in its own right.

Let’s call it theology getting its hands dirty.

Foundationalist Exclusivism

The paradigm which I have named “Foundationalist Exclusivism” (or “Evangelism”) is I think the primary lens by which the church has viewed missiology since enlightenment times. It’s based on two ideas:

1. Forundationalism is a theory in epistemology (the study of knowledge) that hold beliefs are justified because of basic premises or because they are justified by other justified beliefs. Basically foundationalism holds that many beliefs and practises are “set in stone” and upon this foundation of knowledge we slowly build more knowledge.

2. Exclusivism is the belief that people can be categorised into “saved” and “unsaved” people based on the fulfilment of some criteria (faith, baptism, works, etc)

Essentially the Foundationalist Exclusivism paradigm holds that every person is in one of two mutually exclusive groups: “Unsaved” and “Saved”. Your position in one of these categorisations predetermines your eternal destination. Essentially, we categorise people by where they are going to end up. We then suggest that there exists a transitionary action that changes us from unsaved to saved (or vice versa).

Now foundationalism is what creates this barrier between the saved and unsaved. Essentially foundationalism states that “Saved people believe and do these things…” Every saved person is expected to adhere to foundational practises and beliefs. Have you ever heard someone say that you need to believe in young earth, six day creationism to be Christian? That is a foundationalist position. Foundationalism creates the wall, the standard, between saved and unsaved people. It determines the requirements for the transition. What doctrines one has to have faith in for example.

According to Foundationalist Exclusivism the primary mission of the church is to get as many people into the “saved” category as possible. How? By getting as many people to fulfil the requirements for the transition as possible – Get as many people to pray the sinner’s prayer as possible, Get as many people baptised as possible, Get as many people convinced as possible. Foundational Exclusivism usually says nothing of the character of saved and unsaved people except that “saved people have fulfilled the requirement of x and unsaved people have not”.

Missional

The Missional paradigm is a new way of approaching missiology. The Missional Paradigm holds that God’s primary mission is not to make people saved, but to make people like Christ. Essentially in the Missional paradigm the goal is not justification, it is sanctification. This is significant because sanctification is a goal that is not achievable in this life time. So Missional Christians do not believe the “transitionary requirement” has ever been fulfilled but is constantly in the process of fulfilment.

In the Missional Paradigm no one has ever “made it”. Our eternal destination is not something which has been predetermined because of some requirement we have met (not all Missional people need agree with this). Rather we just believe that God has our best interests at heart and will do what is right when we die whilst we get on to the task of being “Christlike”. The primary goal is transformation (where as in the Foundational Exclusivism paradigm it is an option). The sinners prayer, faith, baptism, and works are all fuel for (and the continuing results of) transformation they are not the goal.

In the Missional Paradigm evangelism is not about inviting people to become “saved”. It is about inviting people to join with us in a new way of life. Stanley Hauerwas puts it best: “The work of Jesus was not a new set of ideals or principals for reforming or even revolutionizing society, but the establishment of a new community, a people that embodied forgiveness, sharing and self sacrificing love in its rituals and disciple. In that sense, the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ’s message; but to be the message.”

The great commission reads as follows: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Mathew 28:18-20) What’s interesting here is that the only actual command in this passage is “make disciples”. In the original Greek “go”, “baptise”, and “teach” are all adverbs – they describe the method by which we are to make disciples.

In Judaism a disciple was someone who has dedicated themself to becoming like a rabbi. So Jesus was essentially saying “make everybody be like me”. The great commission is not about getting people saved, it is about making people Christlike.

Effects of the Paradigm

The effects of your paradigm on your actions are so huge they are hard to summarise. But consider the following:

1. It changes the way we act as Christians

2. It changes the way we evangelise

3. It changes the way we do church

4. It changes the way we approach soteriology

5. It changes the way we approach social action